Ch.3-5 Reading Response

One thing that really stood out to me is the idea of Backwards Design. This idea seems so simple and kind of like a "DUH" concept to me. In order to plan a lesson, the idea is to know where we are going i.e. what we want our students to know. By starting here, we know where the road is leading now we just need to decide how to get there. The hardest idea for me is to understand where I want to go so I simply try to find a way to get there then hope that I will magically see it like a sign saying "YOU ARE HERE". It is always said that we need to teach what our students need and by knowing what they need or where they are academically, we can better outfit our lessons and activities.


I LOVE the idea of having an overarching BE when teaching. I'm a firm believer that teaching extends way beyond the classroom. We are preparing the future of this world and can have impact on how society changes. The teachers that I remember from school were ones who not only cared about my academic successes but my real world successes as well. They taught us social studies along with the idea of working together and art with the encouragement to be creative in any form necessary. Math can be used for future problem solving situations and Science can encourage the idea of inventions as well as the idea of experimentation. As teachers, it is important to realize that we have an effect on students in many ways so by integrating these overarching ideas into our curriculum, we truly can change the way the world thinks/acts and they way our students look at the world around them.


Lev Vygotsky believed that children learned culture best through interpersonal relationships and social interactions. Through the use of the KNOW/DO/BE bridge, we can have our students learn not only about their own culture but the culture of others. Say for example we needed to know about the Civil War. An overlapping idea for the BE could be conflict resolution or the idea of working together. By showcasing this idea not only in our culture and other cultures, students are better able to internalize these ideas as well as make them their own.

hope this makes some sort of sense :-)